


the care and keeping of your nicky

by allandmore99



Series: the once and future immortal [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (sort of), Andy’s Magical Dildo Drawer, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Infidelity, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Sex, Polyamory Negotiations, Sex Toys, Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship, bedwarming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27557431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allandmore99/pseuds/allandmore99
Summary: 3 times Andy takes care of Nicky, with Joe’s blessing, and one time Nicky takes care of her in return.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: the once and future immortal [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017526
Comments: 7
Kudos: 144





	the care and keeping of your nicky

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this got more emotional than I was anticipating! This is probably my favourite fic I’ve done for this fandom, really loved exploring Andy and Nicky’s relationship. Hope you all enjoy ❤️
> 
> Fill for this prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/7005.html?thread=2465885#cmt2465885
> 
> Andy keeps Nicky company (with Joe’s approval of course) while Joe is away or out on a mission.
> 
> This doesn’t have to be smut (though I’d love some Andy/Nicky pegging scenes,) but it can just be fluff and bed sharing with little spoon Nicky!

** I.  **

The first time it had happened, Joe had been so sweetly worried, rattling off so many directions and red lines and “oh, he likes to have his hair played with, but don’t tug on it too hard, or, well, you can but that’s going to get him worked up so only do that if you’re willing to get him off, which you don’t have to do, obviously, but also you can if you want, I don’t mind—“ that finally Andy had to cut him off, hand pressed against his collarbone. 

“Yusuf,” she said firmly. “It’s going to be fine. Nicky and I are old friends, I’m going to do my best to take good care of him and if he doesn’t like something he can tell me, no?”

Joe worried at his lower lip a bit, but he really did have to go leave on his mission, and after all he trusted her completely or he wouldn’t be leaving Nicky alone with her. “I just don’t want him to be lonely,” he said softly, and she leaned in to press a kiss to the top of his curls. “I know, Joe, and he won’t be, I promise. He and I will have a good time together, don’t worry. Just focus on what you need to get done and get home safely to us as soon as possible, okay?”

That first time, she hadn’t tested out the hair tugging even though she was a bit curious about it. She had that sense, the one she used to get when she was taming a wild horse, back during the thousands of years when her whole life was riding across the steppe, that it was better to take it easy at first.

It was funny, she thought—she had known Nicky for hundreds of years at that point, and yet it was the first time that they had spent a significant amount of time alone together. Nicky and Joe were inseparable by the time she met them, and there had been Quynh for so long as well, and this just happened to be the first mission that was really only set up for one person. It had made sense for Joe to go on his own, but she could see how much it was tearing him apart to leave Nicky behind, even for a few days.

The first day had gone by surprisingly quickly—Andy had offered to spar with Nicky out in the garden, best two bouts out of three, except he beat her twice in a row and she was so stunned that she asked him to go a few more rounds. “You’ve been practicing,” she remarked, tousling his hair a bit, and he flashed her a crooked smile, pleased that she had noticed. 

Andy had never known what to do with the fact that the others so obviously looked up to her—perhaps because she was the oldest, or maybe because of some innate quality within her. She wasn’t sure she was worthy of their admiration, but it sparked a coil of heat in her belly, and she had never been one to turn down something that pleased her, and so she simply accepted it as she did so many other improbable facts. She could not die. Quynh was lost. Sometimes Nicky and Joe looked at her like she hung the moon.

They were both exhausted after sparring, but Nicky insisted on cooking something complicated with a long name that Andy forgot the moment after she heard it. Andy left him to his precise chopping and stirring over the fire, went down to the nearby stream and stripped without caring if he could see her from the house, diving into the cool water with a contented sigh. Life might be long, she thought, but some pleasures never changed: cool, clean water; a warm fire and a hot meal; the touch of another’s skin.

They chatted and laughed through dinner, and he only looked hesitant for a moment when it was time to sleep. The cottage they were staying in had two small sleeping rooms, one which Joe and Nicky had been using and one where Andy had been sleeping alone, and Nicky paused in between them, caught for just a half a moment, and she took pity on him, offering him a secret smile. “Want to come to mine?” She asked. He held himself a bit stiffly at first when they lay down, but when she slung an arm around his waist, plastering herself against his back and holding him close, he sighed softly, his breathing evening out and his body relaxing into her touch, and she rested her chin on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of  _ Nicky _ and  _ family _ .

** II. **

Andy had known from the first time Joe talked to her about keeping Nicky company while he was away that they would end up having sex. She was under no illusions—Nicky wasn’t her great love, and she wasn’t his. But she did love him, with the deep respect and affection with which she had once loved her fellow warriors more than 5000 years before, and he wasn’t bad looking, and he was right there sleeping in her arms, and she had gone to bed with people for far worse reasons.

She knew it was pretty much inevitable, but she was waiting for Nicky to come to the same conclusion, because she knew that she was more casual about sex than most people and she figured he might need a little time to catch up with her. 

They were in Spain when it finally happened, in a sleepy village which hadn’t changed much in the two hundred years since she had bought this safe house, and Joe and Booker were off on an easy mission, something that clearly didn’t need more than two people. Freed from worrying too much about their comrades, she and Nicky were almost on vacation. It was a beautiful summer night, they had enjoyed a long dinner at a tavern in the village square with more than one bottle of the inn-keeper’s excellent wine, and they were both relaxed and filled with an unusual cheer when they got back home. 

Andy lounged lazily on the canapé, and Nicky slumped down next to her, laying his head in her lap. Without thinking, she started running her fingers through his hair, and if he made a happy hum at first, his noises started to shift after she absentmindedly tugged at the strands. “Andy,” he said, suddenly sounding very sober and a little choked. “Joe warned you about that, didn’t he?”

She was confused for a moment, before she looked down and saw his hair caught between her fingers and the way his chest was gently heaving, and she chuckled. “He did, but I had almost forgotten,” she admitted. “Do you want me to stop?” He shook his head, but he got up, perching on his knees next to her. “I’ve never been with a woman,” he admitted. “In fact, I never wanted to.” He shrugged, a little sheepish. “I can appreciate when a woman is beautiful, but I never wanted to do anything about it, even before Joe, and then, well. I only want him, really.” 

He cocked his head, as if he was a bit confused about something. “But you’re my favourite woman in the whole world,” he explained. “And I always feel so safe and secure in your arms, like when Joe’s away and you take care of me, and—“ he bit his lip as if he didn’t know how to explain it. “Sometimes just hugging you doesn’t feel close enough. I don’t know if that makes sense,” he fretted, and she leaned in to kiss him, a chaste press of lips at first. “What does Joe say?” She asked gently, because she knew that Nicky wouldn’t be telling her all this if he hadn’t confessed it to Joe first. 

“Joe says that he understands exactly what I mean,” Nicky admitted. “And that love takes many forms and that it starts in the heart, but that sometimes you want to express it with touch as well.” Nicky shook his head, clearly still a little bemused by his own feelings. “I don’t know how Joe seems to understand it so clearly, when I don’t. I’m not attracted to you, except for how I kind of am. I don’t love you like I love Joe, but I do love you, and I think maybe this would make me love you even more, and right now I want to touch you very badly but I don’t think I would want it very often, and...” he shrugged. “But what about you?”

She smiled, ruffling his hair. “It’s easier for me to understand, Nico. I’m a very old woman,” she teased, “and I’ve seen it all and done it all. Besides, back when I was young, sex was different, I don’t know. Nobody back then bothered to hide their desires, or be ashamed of them. Sex was different things to different people at different times, and that was that. Sometimes I wanted someone because I was lonely, or because I was cold, or because I wanted a moment of fun and companionship before a battle. Sometimes I wanted someone because I loved them as a friend, and sometimes I wanted them because they were the other half of my soul.” She kissed the corner of Nicky’s mouth. “You know who still holds the other half of my heart, just as Joe holds yours. But you have a piece of it as well, Nicky, you always have and you always will, and if you want me to share your bed tonight, it will mean no more and no less than two very good friends enjoying each other’s company.”

He swallowed, considering, and then nodded. “I want to try this, anyway,” he decided, and she rewarded him with a kiss, a little deeper than before. “Whatever you want, Nicky,” she promised, and he paused, considering. “I don’t know what I would like,” he realised. “But...bedroom, to start with?” She nodded, toeing off her shoes and dropping her clothes as she went, jumping onto her bed, unashamed of her nudity.

He shirked off his own clothes and then paused at the foot of the bed, taking her in. He had never spent so long looking at a woman naked before, he realised, and it was as he had always suspected—though he could admire her form, it didn’t set his blood racing like a handsome man would, much less like the sight of Joe’s bare skin. He felt almost ashamed as he stood there, his cock still soft against his thigh even while she was spread out waiting for him, but she just beckoned him closer. “Shh, Nico, it’s okay,” she calmed. “Just kiss me again, and then you can tell me some of the things you normally enjoy, with Joe or on your own.” She pulled him on top of her, hands encircling his waist as she kissed him deeply, and he did feel a small flare of desire at the kissing. 

“When you’re with Joe,” she whispered, tilting her head to tongue lightly at his earlobe, “do you prefer to take him or for him to take you?” Her fingers stroked down his sides, elicited small shivers as they passed over sensitive spots. “I like when he takes me,” Nicky confessed, and she rewarded him with a light nip to his ear. “Do you like it when he opens you up with his fingers?” She asked, one hand straying down to cup Nicky’s ass, and that earned her his first groan. “Yes,” he replied easily, and she smiled against his neck. They would manage just fine, she thought. 

“In the drawer over there, there is oil,” she told him, knowing she wouldn’t need to explain what that was for. “And some other things I think we will want.” With a last kiss to his ear, she let him get up and fetch the oil, savouring the shocked gasp he let slip as he opened the drawer. “Madre de Dio,” he exclaimed, pulling out a massive wooden facsimile of a cock from the drawer. She grinned, rolling over onto her side. “We might need to work up to that one,” she admitted. “Bring us a couple of the smaller ones, though, whichever one catches your fancy.”

He took a while choosing, but when he climbed back on the bed next to her, his cock was half-hard, and when he kissed her there was new heat in it. “Where did you get these things,” he asked, handing her the oil and watching intently as she coated her fingers. “Hmm, here and there over the years,” she explained, trailing her fingers down his cleft and rubbing at his entrance, teasing him until he groaned with desire. “I even made a few myself, back in the day,” she admitted, drinking up the noises he let slip as she opened him up on her fingers. “I’ve always been a good hand with a knife, so it wasn’t too hard to whittle some wood into the shape I wanted. Then,” she murmured, biting her lip in concentration as her fingers searched inside him, “I just needed to polish them, to make sure they’re nice and smooth and—ah, there it is,” she said with satisfaction, fingertips prodding at his prostate as he yelped, toying with him until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Fuck me, Andy, please,” he begged, and she nodded, reaching for the smallest of the toys he had pulled out of the drawer. “You can have one of the bigger ones later, if you’re good,” she promised, and the way he moaned as she filled him with the toy sent heat flaring down her spine. “You take it so beautifully,” she told him, twisting the toy inside him, pressing its flared tip against his prostate until he nearly sobbed. “That’s right, Nicky, just enjoy it, darling,” and she whispered encouragements in his ear, working the toy in and out of him until he spilled with a cry. 

“That was lovely,” she told him as she carefully pulled the toy out, squirming a bit with her own unresolved desire, and he reached for her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her soundly. “Thank you, Andromache,” he said sincerely. “You have given me something new, that I never thought I would have,” and she smiled, kissing him back. “You are very welcome, Nico. It was my pleasure, truly,” and his hands rummaged in the sheets, pulling out one of the other toys he had selected, and she groaned as she saw it was one of her favourites. “Can I use this on you?” He asked, and she twined her legs around his waist, rocking against him. “Please, Nicky,” she pleaded, and she knew that she would always cherish that night and hold it close to her heart.

** III.  **

In all their years together, Nicky and Joe had only had one fight that was bad enough that Joe ended up leaving their safe house, venturing out into the light mist surrounding their cabin in the Carpathian Mountains.

Andy and Booker had wisely stayed out of the living room when they heard screaming in Italian and filthy Ligurian curses, peppered with a little Romanian for local colour, but Andy tentatively ventured out once the door slammed behind Joe, finding Nicky pretty much as she would have imagined, slumped at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. His hair was askew and still matted with blood—it had been a very bad mission, that day, and they had had no time to stop on the road, rushing in panicked haste until they came to this long-disused safe house. Andy and Booker had cleaned up almost immediately, eager to wash the grime and gore out of their hair, but Nicky and Joe had already started in on the recriminations.

Andy had only heard half of the argument, but there was really only one thing Joe and Nicky ever fought about, and that was each other’s safety. Joe had taken a nasty hit that was meant for Nicky, that day, and if she was still haunted by the stunned look in his eyes as he had crumpled to his knees, the howl of pain that threatened to shatter glass, then she could only imagine how torn up Nicky was about it. It didn’t help that Joe had stayed down for a long time, still and unmoving even after Nicky cut his way through their attackers, a vicious ball of fury and grief. Joe had stayed quiet even as Nicky bent over him, pressing kisses to his cooling cheeks, whispering pleas to the God he no longer truly believed in, and even Andy had begun to fear the worst when Joe finally gasped awake, groaning in pain.

She understood why Nicky was upset; she had only to draw on the ever-present well of anger inside her by thinking about Quynh in pain, Quynh dying, to understand it. She also understood why Joe insisted he wouldn’t have done anything differently if he had it to do over again, because she would cut out her own beating heart and crush it in her hands if it would mean Quynh could be free. 

They were both wrong, and they were both right, and the root of the conflict and its very solution were the same: nearly a thousand years of steadfast love. Joe would come back before dawn, she knew, and they would both fall into each other and rush to be the first one to apologise, and they would be fine. She knew this, but in the meantime Joe was gone and Nicky was hurting, and that was a responsibility she had promised to take on long ago.

“Oh, Nicolo,” she breathed softly, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head, uncaring of the dirt and blood. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Can I help you get clean?” 

He didn’t speak, but he let her hoist him out of the chair, let her take him to the bathroom, one arm sling around his waist, let her undress him, bunching up his filthy clothes. She made as if to leave, but he stopped her, one thin hand curling around her wrist. “Please,” he whispered in Italian, voice a little rough. “Stay,” and she nodded, stripping efficiently and pulling him into the cramped shower cabin.

He started crying softly as she ran her fingers through his hair, gently working the grime out, lathering him up with an absurd amount of soap to chase away the foul smells of the day. “Oh Nicky,” she murmured, pulling him closer to her. “I’ve got you, it’s alright, Joe’s alright, he’ll be back soon,” she whispered as she rubbed soothing circles into his scalp.

“I can’t lose him,” Nicky gasped out, a little desperately, and that made something clench in her chest and, for an ugly moment, she wanted to snarl at him. Yes, you can, she wanted to tell him. You think you can’t, but you could, you would have to survive it, even when the loss cut a little deeper into you with every day. Instead, she took a deep, shaky breath, and kissed his forehead. “You won’t have to,” she reassured him. “He’ll be back soon, everything will be okay,” and Nicky brought one hand to her chin and pulled her in for a kiss, a real kiss like they didn’t often share, as the water poured down on them. 

She kissed him back, because she would do anything to help him, and this was easy enough to give, after all. He walked her back against the wall of the shower, lips still on hers and one hand on her hip, and she let him press her there, let him lick into her mouth with increasing desperation, and she was surprised to feel that he was hard against her thigh. He really wasn’t usually attracted to women and wasn’t very attracted to anyone other than Joe, so normally it required quite a bit of teamwork and creativity to get him aroused if they wanted to do something when they were alone just the two of them, and that in and of itself was a red flag. She pulled away, a little regretfully, and looked him in the eye. “Nicky, you know I don’t mind, I’ll give you whatever you want, but we’ve never done this while you were angry at Joe, and I think you might regret it later,” she explained, and he gave a hitching sob and fell into her arms, burying himself in her shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered once he had cried himself out and the water had gone cold. 

“Sorry about that,” he told her, but she shook her head. “No need to apologise for anything, Nicky,” she said firmly, turning the water off and finding them big towels to wrap up in. “Let’s sleep for a little while, hmm? It’s been a long day and I bet Joe will be back soon, and you’ll want to be awake for him.” 

They curled up facing each other on Nicky and Joe’s bed, wrapped in the soft towels, one of Andy’s hands entwined with Nicky’s, and though they were too exhausted and emotionally wrung out to talk anymore, she squeezed his fingers and he squeezed back, a silent pulse of reassurance, until they both fell asleep. When Joe came in just before dawn, he paused in the doorway, a fond smile growing on his face as he saw the two of them coiled around each other, and he managed to tiptoe to the bed without waking them, completing the puzzle by fitting himself against Nicky’s back.

** +1 **

The outburst had been a long time coming, Nicky thought as he sat in their empty Paris apartment—his least favourite of their current safe houses, because it always made him think uncomfortably about the gaping Booker-sized hole in their hearts, but Andy had insisted, had ranted and raved about how nobody else could make a decent fucking pastry, and she had been tetchy for weeks so he had agreed to get on a train to France with her. It had been three years since Merrick, and two years since Quynh—and, by extension, Booker—had sashayed back into their lives.

Things could certainly have gone worse—Quynh and Andy had been at each other’s throats immediately, with the deep hurt and anger that Nicky recognised could only come from an enduring love, and Quynh had very nearly killed her before Booker, chained to a post on Quynh’s boat and barely healed from her last round of torture, shouted out “she can’t heal anymore, she’s mortal now, please don’t hurt her—“ and Quynh just froze, her sword an inch from Andy’s neck. “Is it true?” She asked, and Andy swallowed, weighing for a moment whether it was worth telling the truth.

“It’s true,” she admitted finally, relaxing a bit in Quynh’s hold, resigned to whatever would come next. “Nearly a year now,” she explained in response to the unspoken question in Quynh’s eyes, and her lover shook her head. “No, it can’t be,” she muttered, “not now—“ her sword slipped away from Andy’s neck, and she drew a long thin scratch down Andy’s arm, just barely drawing blood and waiting for it to seal up immediately, her face falling with each second that the blood welled up from the wound. 

“No, no, no,” Quynh pleaded, and Andy’s gaze softened. “It’s okay, Quynh,” she tried to tell her. “I’ve had such a long life, really, it’s okay, I’m tired now,” and Quynh turned away so that only Booker and Nicky could see her tears. “But I just got you back,” Quynh said plaintively, and that sent a cold stab through Andy, because it was true. She had thought she was ready to die, but how could she be cursed to leave the world so soon after she had been given a reason to stay in it?

So yes, things could have gone worse if Booker hadn’t warned Quynh in time about Andy’s newfound mortality, but they certainly could have gone better. Booker had a fresh layer of trauma from his months spent as Quynh’s captive, Quynh was teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown, and both of them had asked for time alone to heal. Quynh had agreed to meet Andy every six months until she was ready to come home to them for good, but some stolen moments weren’t enough, not when Andy felt the clock ticking for the first time in six millennia.

Then there was the other problem, the one that Andy was currently raging about. “I’m sick and tired of being useless and everyone acting like I can’t lift a fucking finger,” she cursed, opening cabinet doors and slamming them shut. “And there’s never anything I need in these goddamn places,” and she was about ready to smash a plate when Nicky walked over and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Andy, please, stop it. You know that we know what you are capable of, boss. We’ve never had any doubts about your abilities to hold your own and we don’t now. Joe and Nile would always trust you to have their backs, on this mission or any other.” He swallowed deeply, nuzzling the side of her neck. “It’s just...you’re precious to us, you’re irreplaceable, and we want to keep you with us for as long as possible.”

That was exactly why Joe and Nile had gone on this mission that they hadn’t told Andy the whole truth about, he thought to himself, and why they had had to do it alone. Even if he hadn’t wanted to stay behind to watch over Andy, Nicky selfishly wouldn’t have wanted to go, because he was so afraid of getting his hopes up and then seeing that they had fallen short. 

Copley had written to Nile a few weeks earlier, had told her that he had found something while combing through data from Merrick’s laboratories. The scientists had discovered a formula derived from the samples they had taken, something which initially seemed promising but then they had dismissed because it didn’t seem to induce any extra healing ability in a normal human. In the margins, though, one of the scientists had scribbled a few additional notes, remarking that it might work to boost healing in someone who had already become immortal.

It was the thinnest of leads—they had no idea if there was still any of it left in some of Merrick’s satellite laboratories, or if it would work on Andy, or even if she would agree to try it—but it was the best chance they had found in two years of secret searching, and none of them were willing to let Andy go without a fight. 

Andy didn’t know this, either, but Quynh and Booker were joining Joe and Nile to search for the substance, and if they managed to get their hands on it, then the four of them would come to Paris, the whole family together again, to explain to Andy what they had found and give her the choice of whether or not to try it. That had been the subject of much heated discussion between Booker and Quynh—Quynh hadn’t wanted to take any chances, had wanted to simply slip the substance in Andy’s drink and deal with her anger later, once she was (hopefully) immortal again, but Booker had been adamant that they had to let Andy choose.

Nicky wasn’t sure which was worse—to have the formula not work at all, or to know it worked and to have Andy turn it down, and the thought made his hand tighten on her shoulder, turning her around to face him. “You do know that, don’t you?” He asked earnestly. “I know it must be frustrating for you when we try and protect you, because you’re used to always charging in first. But it’s never, ever because we don’t have faith in you. It’s only because we love you so much,” and then he had to break off to swallow past the lump in his throat, “and we would miss you a lot, you know that, right?”

Her eyes softened, and she set down the plate she had been clutching, pulling him into a tight hug, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “I know, Nico,” she whispered. “I’ll try and be here as long as I can.”

Later, she was curled up on the sofa watching one of the absurd shows that he never would have expected her to enjoy, something where people got married immediately after they met each other, and she was laughing, bright and happy, while Nicky put the finishing touches on his tiramisu, and his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a short message from Joe, a photo of Nile’s hand holding two small vials of liquid, and then Joe wrote, “there is always hope, my heart. We are all on our way home now,” and Nicky blinked away the tears, slipped his phone back into his pocket, and went out to join Andy and wait for their family to arrive. 


End file.
